Porphyry and Black Magic

In the De abstinentia (11, 41, 5) Porphyry is the first philosopher to give an exact definition of goeteia or black magic saying: "All black magic is accomplished through the opposite sort [i.e. evil] daemons. This paper will be presented in two parts: in the first part, there is the description about the difference between Magic-the sacred science of the Persian Magi (De abstinentia IV, 16, 1)-, and the black magic (De abstinentia 11, 41, 5); in the second part, using Porphyry's definition of black magic and other philological data, it's shown that Porphyry was not merely a philosopher interested in black magic in a theoretical manner, but also a practicing sorcerer.